Too Late
by Poltergust 5000
Summary: Post-Triple Deluxe. A confused Meta Knight tries to figure out why Kirby and Dedede are so down in the dumps after their adventure in the sky kingdom of Floralia.


"King Dedede?"

Meta Knight sat in the waiting room of the Dreamland Central News Station. Truth be told, he wasn't entirely sure what he was doing there. Kirby and King Dedede had returned from the sky Kingdom of Floralia earlier that week, having saved Pop Star from whatever evil force had been plaguing it.

Today, the two of them were being interviewed about it, for whatever it was worth. Meta Knight sighed. What was so different about this time than when they had defeated Zero? Or Nightmare? What exactly were these news anchors expecting to get from yet another interview of Pop Star's saviors?

Next to him, King Dedede gave a noncommital grunt and stood from his seat, walking slowly over to the door the voice had called his name from. At the same time, Kirby came out of the door, looking sullen. He walked past Dedede, the two of them not even so much as looking at the other as they walked past.

Meta Knight narrowed his eyes slightly under his mask. That was odd. Normally the King would have made some half-concerted effort to mess with the pink puffball. Come to think of it, he'd been unusually quiet next to him in the waiting room as well. What was on that penguin's mind?

With a soft pouting noise, Kirby sat down in the seat opposite Meta Knight's, against the far wall. Yet another oddity, Meta Knight mused. Sure, maybe the pink ball didn't love Meta Knight to bits, but he would normally sit next to whoever was in the room, just to be friendly. What was wrong with him? And Dedede?

Meta Knight glanced over at the door, just as Dedede disappeared behind it.

...Had... something happened...?

Now he was curious. He turned to look Kirby in the eyes, ready to ask him a few questions about his most recent excursion. What he saw left him shocked.

While he hadn't been looking, Kirby had grabbed a magazine from a nearby rack, and buried his face in it. Meta Knights eyes went wide in confusion. He... wasn't aware that Kirby could... read.

Sure enough, a few seconds later, he heard the little ball of pink groan quietly in frustration. Meta Knight could practically see the storm cloud over Kirby's head as he shut the newspaper and haphazardly tossed it to the ground. Then, he got up, and walked over to the door. Meta Knight found himself calling out to him before he could realize it.

"Wait."

Kirby stopped in his tracks and looked back at Meta Knight, his eyes wide open and his hand already reaching for the doorknob.

"Did... something happen? In Floralia?"

Kirby sighed. A high-pitched sound, it would have sounded comical coming from anybody else's mouth. Coming from Kirby though, it just sounded... sad.

"No." He said simply. "Nothing happened. Nothing out of the ordinary."

With that, he opened the door and left the room. Meta Knight was, frankly, speechless. He had never heard Kirby sounding so... dejected.

For a few minutes, he sat, pondering. Something had definitely happened in Floralia, and Kirby really didn't want to talk about it. Dedede was currently being interviewed, so...

Meta Knight grunted, realizing he didn't really have any choice but to wait. Kirby wouldn't talk until he wanted to, and the King probably wouldn't say anything to him even if he _wasn't_ currently being interviewed. So, he sat and waited.

Grabbed a magazine, thumbed through it a bit. Meh, wasn't interesting. Put the magazine back. Drummed his fingers on his boots for a bit. Sighed and leaned back in the stiff waiting room chair. Counted the ceiling tiles (Twenty-four). Sat back up, counted the books on the bookshelf against the opposite wall (One-hundred-fifty-six). Let his gaze wander to the magazine Kirby had tossed away.

It was a gardening magazine. Walking over and picking it up, Meta Knight flipped through it, seeing it was mostly pictures. Kirby could have enjoyed this, even without being able to read. Why had he gotten so frustrated by it?

Maybe because it reminded him of Floralia? Had what happened up there been so horrible as to taint the pink puffball's view of something as pure and elegant as gardening? If Meta Knight was curious before, he was full-on worried now.

But, it was still too soon. Kirby didn't fall into a slump often, but when he did, it usually took quite a while for him to recover to the point he could talk about whatever had upset him so. The last time it had happened was...

Meta Knight shuddered.

...after the battle with Magolor. Kirby had truly loved Magolor as a good friend, and the alien's betrayal had hurt him deeply. He hadn't spoken to anyone for almost a full day after their adventure had ended. Meta Knight's eyes narrowed.

Before he could ponder it any further, however, he heard a voice.

"Meta Knight?"

* * *

"How'd it go? You mean, saving Floralia? It went alright, I suppose. We beat up the bad guy, saved the world, and came back. Not much happened other than that.

...

...I kinda wish more had happened, though. Maybe things would have turned out better."

* * *

Meta Knight walked into the room adjacent to the waiting room. This was the interviewer's room, and said interviewer was sitting at a desk on the other side of the room. A Hothead, wearing a trilby, with a Walky standing on the desk, off to the side. The interviewer gestured to a chair on the side of the desk facing Meta Knight, and Meta Knight walked up and sat in it. It was a lot more comfortable than the stiff chair he'd been sitting in in the waiting room.

"A'right." The Hothead asked, in an... interesting accent. "Thanks fer joinin' me today, MK." He said, calling Meta Knight by his initials. Before Meta Knight could correct the somewhat rude interviewer, though, he continued. "I'mma gonna be askin' ya some questions about Floralia, and what happened this last week. That a'right with you?"

Meta Knight took a second to collect his thoughts before responding.

"Yes." He spoke plainly and concisely.

"A'right." the interviewer spoke, with that same painful pronunciation. Meta Knight fought to keep from wincing. "So, if our sources are to be trusted, and mind you, that includes both the King Dedede and that little pink puffball guy, the one who decided to try and take over the planet, and was subsequently whooped by those two, was none other than Queen Sectonia, the Queen of the Sectras, herself. Tell me MK, did you know her at all?"

Meta Knight was surprised to hear Sectonia's name. He had met the Sectra Queen before, but he'd had no idea that it had been her that Kirby and King Dedede had defeated, and no doubt killed, this time around. He couldn't help but wonder if the state of Kirby and Dedede had something to do with her...

Before he could lose himself in his thought anymore, though, he answered.

"I'd met her before, when I went to the Mirror World. Her people are the keepers of the Dimension Mirror, after all."

He paused, collecting his thoughts.

"From the moment I first met her, I could sense there was something wrong with her. It surprises me more to hear her name come up at all than it does to hear she snapped and tried to take over Pop Star."

"And why does that surprise you so much, MK, if you don't mind me askin'?" the interviewer cut in. Meta Knight flinched in his seat at the sudden interruption, but responded quickly.

"When I met her those years ago, she had said she wanted to get as far away from this planet as possible. She thought Pop Star was "ugly". Not to mention, she was entirely obsessed with the Dimension Mirror. When I first met her, she was fawning over her own reflection in it. I'm surprised to hear she decided she wanted anything to do with anything outside her own Kingdom, is all."

"But MK, the Sectras only invaded Floralia, remember?"

"That's true." Meta Knight paused. "I'm sorry, I guess I'm not that well-versed in this subject. I'd only ever met the Queen once."

Inwardly, Meta Knight chastised himself for speaking without thinking. Of course Sectonia and the Sectras had only intentionally invaded Floralia, even if Sectonia had eventually decided to attempt to take over the entire planet at some point, as evidenced by the vines that had encircled the entire planet during the final showdown. Obviously Sectonia had been too far-gone to think clearly...

Feh. He was over-thinking. Speculating. Better stick to what he knew for sure.

"S'a'right." said the interviewer. "I only got one more question for you, MK. On the subject of some of the previous villains who have tried to take over Pop Star, do ya ever feel sorry for 'em?" he asked.

Meta Knight narrowed his eyes. "Why would I feel sorry for them? Most of them are either mindless monsters or so purely evil you can practically smell it in the air." He spoke, slowly and levelly, belying the rising anger in him at the thought of some of Pop Star's previous attackers. Nightmare, Necrodeus, Dark Nebula... they were all sick, twisted, depraved creatures. Why would anybody in their right mind ever feel sorry for them?

"Sure, sure," the interviewer replied, "But what about villains who used to be good, but got corrupt by temptations? Or villains who lost their feelin's, stuck forever feelin' nothin' but hate? Don't you ever wonder what life coulda been like for them if they never had any of that stuff happen to 'em?" He continued asking. Meta Knight could feel his anger in his face, like a pot of water simmering on a stove.

"It's unfortunate when one loses the ability to be good..." he started, his mind drifting towards Zero, Pop Star's two-time devil. "But what they choose to do after that is still their fault. Someone with no ability to be good can still decide to be neutral."

"And as for 'good people, corrupted by temptations'," he continued, his eyes narrowing to a scowl, "If they are truly good, they should be able to resist those things."

He took a deep breath, glaring straight into the eyes of his interviewer.

"Anyone who would disturb the peace of our world deserves nothing less than what they intend for everyone else. None of the monsters who attack our planet deserve our pity. None of them." he finished.

The interviewer blinked, staring blankly into Meta Knights intense gaze.

"A'righty." he started. "Thanks, MK. That's all the questions I got fer ya. You've given all of us lots to think about."

Meta Knight nodded, and hopped out of the chair. "You're welcome."

He left the room without another word.

* * *

"Did I know the Queen? You mean, like, before everything that happened?

Yeah, I knew her. She didn't used to be so bad. We had tea a couple of times, as world leaders, ya know. She was pretty nice, once you got to know her. Not to mention...

...

Er-hem.

Maybe, best to stop there. Heh-heh..."

* * *

v

Many hours later, Meta Knight finally arrived back at his chambers aboard his battleship, the Halberd. He'd spent a long while looking for either Kirby or Dedede, but had found neither.

He sat in a chair, opposite the wall with a large screen built into it. His monitor was usually used for work, such as reviewing maps, plotting flight paths, checking the status of his warship, but it also worked as a standard TV set.

Tonight, he would be using it for that exact purpose. He turned the monitor on with a button on his chair, and switched it to pick up the channel he knew the interviews would be being broadcast on.

First up was Kirby's interview. Much like what Kirby had said in the waiting room, Kirby mostly dodged the questions or answered vaguely, always bringing up the fact that it had gone "normally". He looked equally as down-trodden as he had in the waiting room, if not moreso.

King Dedede's segment was... interesting. Meta Knight couldn't think of another time he'd ever seen that side of the King. The penguin seemed almost... gentle. Melancholy. Not a common set of emotions for the typically larger-than-life, wild, grumpy King.

One thing was for certain though, after watching Dedede's segment. Meta Knight needed to talk to Kirby. He needed to find out exactly what had happened in Floralia. Even if Kirby wasn't ready to talk about it yet, he had to know. What could have happened up there that had caused two of the most energetic, boisterous people he'd ever known to suddenly become so... depressed?

Instead of lingering longer on these questions, Meta Knight unfurled his wings and flew out the door to his chambers, leaving a trail of dust behind him as he sped out of the Halberd.

* * *

"The little guy? Oh, Taranza, you mean? Yeah, he was pretty beat up over what happened. Man, he and Sectonia used to be practically inseparable. It was like they were family, you never saw them apart. I guess Sectonia saved the little guy's life, and he swore his eternal servitude to her? Sounds like a pretty sweet deal. Maybe I should try saving some lives... OH WAIT.

Seriously though. Back then, you never saw anybody as happy as they were with each other. Sectonia especially, I swear she shone so bright you had to cover your eyes.

...Heck of a lot more beautiful than any makeover could ever make her."

* * *

From high in the air, it didn't take too long for Meta Knight to find Kirby. Dark as it was in the late hours of the evning, he spotted him sitting on a hill by a tree way out in the country. He probably should have tried flying when he was looking before, but, whatever. What's past is past.

What Dedede had said in his interview kept ringing in his mind as he flew, though. Had Sectonia really been so nice in the past? Meta Knight trusted his instincts, and they said that Sectonia had always had a little spark of evil somewhere inside her, but the way the King had talked about her...

Meta Knight shook his head, and dove down to where Kirby was sitting. There was no use in doubting himself now. Not until he had all the facts. Right now, he needed to talk to Kirby.

He landed a short distance behind the tree. If Kirby heard him land, he didn't show it.

"...Kirby." he spoke.

Kirby jumped slightly, and turned to look at Meta Knight. His eyes were sad, and glistening slightly, though Meta Knight could tell he hadn't shed any tears. The pink puffball turned back, facing away from Meta Knight and looking out over the countryside.

"...Meta." he said.

Meta Knight walked closer, until he was standing almost right next to Kirby. He gave him some space, though. Just common courtesy.

"What happened in Floralia?"

Kirby scowled, though Meta Knight could barely see it from the angle he was at.

"Nothing happened. It was all normal."

"You're lying."

Kirby's scowl deepened. His frown turned into a grimace.

"Nothing happened."

Meta Knight stood still, searching his mind for another approach. He remembered something Dedede had said...

 _'...I kinda wish more had happened, though. Maybe things would have turned out better.'_

"Okay."

He walked around to stand in front of Kirby. He looked down to meet Kirby's eyes, and Kirby looked up to meet his.

"What _didn't_ happen in Floralia?"

That worked. Kirby's face screwed up, and he turned to stare hard at the ground. A second passsed, and he put a hand on the grassy hill, gripping the earth as best he could. Meta Knight took a step closer, and Kirby grabbed onto his cape, pulling it toward himself. He pushed it into his eyes as he shut them tight.

A hard, choked, frustrated sob then wracked Kirby's spherical form, and Meta Knight's eyes widened slightly as a quiet, pitiful moan escaped from Kirby's lips.

"It... it was just like, all the other times..." Kirby struggled to say. Another quiet sob forced its way out of his throat before he could say anything else. Meta Knight put a hand on the puffball's head, in an effort to comfort him.

"I-I couldn't..." He tried to say, "I couldnt... do a-anything..."

"You couldn't do anything?" said Meta Knight, awkwardly rubbing the top of Kirby's head with his gloved hand. Curses, he wasn't good at this sort of thing. "What do you mean?"

"It w-was too late..." Kirby started, pulling Meta Knight's cape away from his eyes. "It was too late to s-save her..."

"Taranza... he-"

Kirby's body shook with another sob, this one weaker than the last. Meta Knight felt a pang of sadness at the mention of the Queen's underling. If Dedede had been telling the truth, then what Kirby was feeling right now must have been nothing compared to what that poor creature was going through.

"I couldn't..." Kirby said. "It was too late... I couldn't do anything to... to help her." he continued, hiccuping afterward.

"You couldn't save Queen Sectonia." Meta Knight said, rather bluntly. Kirby's eyes fell, and he nodded sadly. Meta Knight sighed. "Kirby, sometimes... people... aren't worth saving." He said, not entirely sure if he still believed it himself. "She was going to take over Pop Star, Kirby. She... she was evil. You had to stop her, no matter what it took."

"No..."

"Hm?"

"No, you don't get it!" Kirby snapped, suddenly. Meta Knight backed up in surprise as Kirby stood up, glaring at him with tears in his eyes. "King Dedede told me about her! She... she used to be a good Queen! She never would have done any of that! She never would have tried to take over Pop Star!" He cried.

"And yet, she did, Kirby. I've told you before, some people are just evil. You don't know how much of her old personality could have been an act. I met her when I travelled to the Mirror World, and I could tell, she was not as good a person as you say."

"That wasn't that long ago! King Dedede had known her for... a really long time before that, Meta Knight!"

Meta Knight couldn't help faltering. It was true, Dedede supposedly knew the Queen far further back than he did...

Was it possible that she had truly been a benevolent ruler at one point? But then, what had changed? Why had she become the kind of person who would try to take over Pop Star?

"I think... I think it was the mirror." Kirby said, balling his hands in front of him, a determined look on his face. "Dedede said, when I went out to go fight Queen Sectonia," Meta Knight couldn't help but notice how Kirby faltered when he said that, "the Dimension Mirror appeared, and it spat out an evil version of himself that he had to fight! Then, he went inside of it, and fought an evil version of you!"

Meta Knight's eyes shot wide open. The Dimension Mirror... it was possible. Dark Mind? Was he still alive? Could he have been behind it all? He could have used the mirror... shown Sectonia power, or beauty...

Corrupted her... She wouldn't have been able to resist. Dark Mind was too powerful, too clever...

It made sense. But that meant...

"But... that means..."

Kirby nodded, a tear finally sliding down his face.

"We might have been able to save her."

"Except..."

Kirby turned to the side, staring down at the ground as another tear rolled down his face. His next words came out in a whisper.

"We were too late..."

He sat down on the grass, the tears finally flowing freely. Meta Knight sat down next to him, looking out over the moonstruck blossoms that covered the nighttime landscape.

He had a lot of thinking to do when he got back to the Halberd.

* * *

"...Yeah, I liked her. How could you not? Beautiful, charming, funny, nice...

I... I wish I'd done something. When I noticed her spending more and more time in front of that mirror.

If only I'd... I dunno, intervened or something?"

The King let out a half-hearted chuckle. His voice caught in his throat.

"Maybe if I had, I could have saved her...

Before it was too late..."


End file.
